My body is a Cage
by Linstock
Summary: My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love but my mind holds the key...


**Stroke. **

Title: My Body is a Cage

Author: Linstock

Code: Spock/Uhura

Rating: PG

Type: Hurt/Comfort

Au: written for Hurt /comfort bingo. Prompt: Stroke.

My first attempt at a songfic "My Body Is A Cage" by Arcade fire

**My body is a cage that keeps me  
From dancing with the one I love  
But my mind holds the key**

Since the stroke every interminable day is the slow torture of being locked in the cage of his un-responsive body. Only his eyes are under his voluntary control. He lays utterly immobile and three times a day others come and touch him, position him, exercise his limbs and tend to his bodily needs. He knows that this is necessary. But he hates their touch, loathes hands on his flesh, he abhors the sudden unwanted intrusion of their minds when they touch his hands and face. His senses are heightened since the stroke, his hearing is acute and he is both more telepathically receptive and less able to shield himself and he is shamed by this lack of control. He keeps his eyes shut so they can not see his hate and shame.

**My body is a cage that keeps me  
From dancing with the one I love  
But my mind holds the key**

He sees glimpses of his carers' minds, some are brusque and professional and these are tolerable. Others are full of pity which grates on his mind like a rasp. One had been cold and contemptuous …"Not such a hot shot now are you?"…and another prurient and curious. These two had never returned; she had made sure of that.

**I'm standing on a stage  
Of fear and self-doubt  
It's a hollow play  
But they'll clap anyway**

They move his limbs and say falsely hopeful puerile things in bright cheery voices, "Oh well done!" He has done nothing. He is a passive puppet and they are the puppeteers. He feels as utterly exposed as he did during his childhood nightmares where he was onstage in front of his tormentors and realised he was naked.

**My body is a cage that keeps me  
From dancing with the one I love  
But my mind holds the key**

Jim does not visit. The Captain can not tolerate sick rooms and illness. His dynamic active personality is unable to cope with this reality. At first Jim would come and fidget and talk stilted and inconsequential nonsense. Now these excruciating pointless visits have stopped. Jim shows his concern in other ways. It is by Jim's intervention that he has been able to stay on the ship this long; but time is running out.

**You're standing next to me  
My mind holds the key**

He feels her presence in his mind through out the day. As she returns to their quarters at shift's end his breathing synchronise with her approaching steps. Then she is standing beside the bed and he yearns for the only touch he wants to feel.

**I'm living in an age  
That calls darkness light  
Though my language is dead  
Still the shapes fill my head**

She removes her clothes and lies against him. He feels the cool pressure of her body. She carefully positions them both and raises his hands to her face, placing his fingers precisely. Once the connection is made she dives into him without a splash. His mind ripples and he rises to meet her and their minds twine together like swimming otters swirling round each other; entwined.

**I'm living in an age  
Whose name I don't know  
Though the fear keeps me moving  
Still my heart beats so slow**

He today he heard the carers talking in the adjoining room as they prepared to leave.

"It won't be long now, only a few weeks. They'll transfer him to medical facility when we dock, it's best for him. It'll be hard on her, but what sort of future do they have with him like this? She's young, she'll adjust and move on."

"She won't like it; she'll give the Captain and Doctor McCoy hell."

"I know, but they won't have a choice much longer. The Captain has been patient but this just can't go on indefinitely. And the doctor's said all along if there is no improvement by the time we dock the commander will have to go to specialist care."

"Well, I'll be glad. The extra duty is…" And the door of the room slides shut as they depart.

The fear that he will be separated from her is debilitating. It causes his heart to stutter and his breath to stop. She sees this fear and her mind is full of devotion, love, determination and sadness.

**My body is a cage that keeps me  
From dancing with the one I love  
But my mind holds the key**

She stays in his mind as long as she can. Without words they share the details of their days, they remember together, and collaborate. And they love with their minds. Eventually her presence starts to blur and sleep overwhelms her. Sometimes he stays in her mind and rests softly in her dreams but sometimes the dreams are too painful to endure and he slips back into himself.

**You're standing next to me  
My mind holds the key  
My body is a …**

When she wakes she performs his morning therapy. His skin craves her touch, hungers for her. She uses her whole body, sliding, rubbing, stroking and caressing. She slips smoothly in and out of his mind neither seeking nor avoiding this contact. Where her hands touch, her lips follow. She will stretch his large long fingered hands massaging the palms, extending the fingers, stretching each in turn and then slip a finger into her mouth and suckling on it and stroking the length of it with her tongue. His mind gasps although his body appears unmoved. She smiles.

**My body is a cage  
We take what we're given  
Just because you've forgotten  
That don't mean you're forgiven**

All the waking hours that he is free on the intrusive hands he toils. He reads and researches using the computer Scotty and Chekov have set up for him. He controls the functions with his eye movements. Doctor McCoy is his constant ally, collaborator and co-researcher. McCoy blames himself for what has happened. This is not logical.

**I'm living in an age  
That screams my name at night  
But when I get to the doorway  
There's no one in sight**

Sometimes he hears her sobbing in the other room. She screams his name silently into a pillow and he knows she sits and rocks to comfort herself because he can not. She closes their link, but he knows.

**My body is a cage that keeps me  
From dancing with the one I love  
But my mind holds the key**

He knows the stroke was caused by exposure to a potent toxin that targeted his Vulcan blood vessels. In the months since the stroke he has become a cross between a healer and a construction engineer. He has surveyed and mapped the ravaged wasteland of damaged tissue in his brain and now he works to clear the wreckage and build bridges and bypasses. He has no blueprints to guide him and repeatedly he fails. He persists.

**You're standing next to me  
My mind holds the key**

He dreams he is falling and he reaches for her. She reaches out to him. He grips her hand and she holds him, tethers him. He is safe. He slips into dreamlessness.

**Set my spirit free  
Set my spirit free  
**The golden light of her elation startles him awake. She is nestled against him and he feels the reverberation of a sob. Why is she jubilant and yet crying?

She reaches up and strokes his face and squeezes his hand.

And then he realises…his hand is gripping hers.

**Set my body free**

He flexes his hand.

Joy.

Au: I would love to hear your comments.


End file.
